On the History of Relationships between David Samoilov, Ágnes Kun, and Antal Hidas

Abstract

Based on fragments of poet David Samoilov’s correspondence with Ágnes Kun, a translator and writer of Hungarian descent (one letter from David Samoilov to Ágnes Kun and six letters from Ágnes Kun to David Samoilov from 1960 to 1982) found in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art, the authors examine the long professional and personal relationships of the two correspondents. For Samoilov, his epistolary contacts with Бgnes Kun also included a relationship with her husband, Soviet Hungarian writer Antal Hidas, whose personality is indirectly present in the correspondence. It may be stated that Бgnes Kun and Antal Hidas discovered the Hungarian classical and modern poetry and Hungarian culture for David Samoilov through its translation. With the help of the word-for-word translations made by Ágnes Kun, he translated such Hungarian poets as Endre Ady, János Arany, Mihály Vцrцsmarty, Antal Hidas, Gyula Illyйs, Attila Jуzsef, Miklós Radnуti, István Simon. But, as it can be seen from the correspondence discovered and published in the auto-documental evidence of David Samoilov (diaries, memoirs, and essays), his communication with Antal Hidas was very uneven and concentrated almost exclusively on the professional: all the letters found are about translations, verses, books, and section headings. The same conclusions can be made about his diaries. Finally, the article introduces one letter of David Samoilov and three letters of Бgnes Kun that have never been published previously.